For controlname you need to use the name of the control bound to your Project ID# field. However, the # may be complicating things. Type the Me. and Intellisense should give you a list of controls and methods. Press the P key to go to Ps and scroll until you find the controlname. Selecting the name from the Intellisense list will make sure you are using the correct control. That control needs to have a ControlSource of the Project ID# field. If you do this correctly, then pressing the button should populate the control with the next number. It will also save the record.

There’s an old Steve Martin joke about how to make a million dollars which starts, “First, get a million dollars…” That’s the key to this trick, too: First, get a bunch of numbers. Here’s a file with 1,197 numbers in it. Now import or paste those numbers into a thread so that the numbers appear in the right place. If you need two matching numbers, just import it twice.

Thanks very much for this. I have done the two button arrangement using cut and paste but I must be quite thick as I can't get it to work. What I would like to do is select the blocks and have numbers put in each one preferably without having to edit each one. If this is what the macro does how do I make it work? I'm not used to working with macros so need basic instructions.
I would like to number a voucher book, i have place 4 vouchers on a page, the thing is that i want each of these vouchers to start with different number, 100, 200, 300, 400, and then i want to number them 99 times. The problem is that they have to be numbered only 1 per page, so that when i have printed them all i can easily crop them and staple them right up with having to go through it all.
So, if you wanted to use this idea in a form or datasheet, let me stop and first remind you – if this is going to be non-updatable, you can just embed a report as a subreport within a form and thus use Running Sum. But let’s discuss the case where you need to be able to edit data in the forms, even with sequential numbering generated for the data you are viewing. This means we need to be able to tie a sequential number to a specific row.
There are also other problems – for one thing, it’s not a very generic solution. You must customize several parts to work for different queries. If the set of tables used in the outermost FROM clause are different, to be the innermost FROM clause, you have to adjust the WHERE clause to reference the correct primary key (or some combination thereof). Then you have to also keep the ORDER BY in sync. That’s a lot of tweaks if you want to use it for different queries. That is why this is the last method listed here but it is one possible solution.
The Artifact ID should NOT be your PK. There is no reason for it to be and to try and use it as such will be a headache. A primary key is simply a unique identifier for a record. Many purists will tell you that users should never see the PK and in your case, I would recommend that. Use an Autonumber as you PK and you can use that as your corresponding Foreign Key in related records. To prevent duplication you can make the combination of Collection Point ID and Artifact ID a unique, multi-field index. Then display the combination as I indicated where you need to show the user a record ID. This is all explained int he blog.
In the example I explained, I was using a list, but did it with un-linked text boxes using “continue from previous number” and “continue numbers across stories.” I’m guessing that there is no way to tell InDesign that even though there are 4 text boxes on the page, that there are two different lists? I’d probably have to just create two threaded stories for that scenario to work.

Thanks for the quick reply, I think I’m a little confused by the Display aspect of this. Artifact ID is a primary key to the table I am working in and I need it to have a unique identifier that other people can search for. The previously adopted naming convention for this ID is that which I mentioned before, Collection Point ID plus a period and then a sequential number restarting at each new Collection Point ID i.e 2-1050.1, 2-1050.2, 2-1060.1 and so on. So I think I actually need to save this in the Artifact ID field. I realize this might be slightly redundant but I’m not sure how the display would work as far as searching for specific Artifact IDs in the future.

Creating a sequential list of numbers, in Word, sounds like an intimidating task. Sure, you can create a numbered list quickly enough, but that feature works with additional text - you're numbering something. If you want a list of just numbers, you have to work a bit harder. Word's SEQ field might come to mind, but that solution is better suited to template-type numbering. In order words, this field works great if you're numbering documents, labels, and so on. It doesn't work so well if you just want to create a list of sequential numbers. You can use it that way, but it'll be more work than it's worth.